French painter and draughtsman, born in 1925 in Paris, died in 1975 in Paris.
Life
After preparatory classes in mathematics in Lyon, where he met Pierre Boulez, Bernard Saby turned to musical composition. With Boulez he studied under René Leibowitz and moved towards serial music. He wrote for the Revue du Domaine musical, whose cover he also designed, and in post-war Paris spent time with Pierre Joffroy, Armand Gatti and Henri Michaux.
In 1956 Michaux published in Misérable Miracle a text by Saby, “L’image privilégiée”, an account of his experience of mescaline. Saby exhibited at the Galerie du Dragon (1955 to 1958, then 1974) and the Galerie de L’Œil (1963, with a text by Michel Butor, 1965, 1967), as well as at the Salon de Mai. In 1965 he was included in the exhibition “Le Surréalisme et l’art fantastique” at the 8th São Paulo Biennial.
Eleven years after his death, in 1986, the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris devoted a retrospective to him, curated by André Berne-Joffroy. Stéphane Gatti (died 2025) later did much to bring his work back to light.
The work
Oils, gouaches, charcoals, washes: Saby’s abstraction draws on his serial research, his experiences with mescaline and hashish, and his study of lichens and ancient Chinese texts. He told Alain Jouffroy he wanted to “build a trap for fascination” and to practise a “painting of the possible”.
“One day a depth began to appear in my paintings, and I went into it, I threw myself headlong into exploring it.” (Bernard Saby, conversations with Michel Butor, 1963)
Patrick Waldberg saw him as the most fearless “skirter of abysses” of his generation; Pierre Boulez, as a personality “torn between the forces of irrationality” and the need to order them. Claude Roy summed it up: “One must be Klee, Wols, Saby or nothing!”
Exhibitions and collections
- Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou: five drawings acquired in 2012 from the gallery’s exhibition devoted to his drawings, including a Sans titre (1951, charcoal on paper, 76 x 108 cm).
- Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris: acquisitions at the time of the 1986 retrospective, then two more in 2008.
- Château de Rochechouart, contemporary art centre of the Haute-Vienne (gift of J. de la Casinière); Musée de l’Hospice Saint-Roch, Issoudun (Zao Wou-ki donation); Musée Unterlinden, Colmar (Person donation).
- Seventh exhibition at the Galerie Les Yeux Fertiles, 13 March to 18 April 2026, in tribute to the artist and to Stéphane Gatti, including a Sans titre (c. 1955, black casein gouache, 65 x 81 cm) and a Sans titre (1966, oil on canvas, 97 x 130 cm).